When Ashley Evans showed up for a spur-of-the-moment weekend visit, her father didn't know anything about the trouble she was fleeing. Posted on 03/02/2005 4:03:59 PM PST by bikepacker67
CHELTENHAM, Md. - Ex-NYPD cop Wayne Evans was in agony yesterday after he handed over his 18-year-old daughter to detectives who charged her in one of New York's most shocking recent murders.
When Ashley Evans showed up for a spur-of-the-moment weekend visit, her father didn't know anything about the trouble she was fleeing.
It wasn't until Tuesday - when NYPD cops called seeking to question her in the lower East Side slaying of actress Nicole duFresne - that the former lawman was forced to confront his daughter.
He told her to cooperate with cops, having no idea she would soon be charged with murder.
"I teach all my kids right from wrong," the distraught dad told the Daily News yesterday.
"I'm 46, I've done good, I've lived longer than lots of black men do," Evans added in an interview at his suburban Washington home. "But my mother used to tell me, and I tell my kids now: 'You get locked up, I'm not coming to get you.'"
Evans' nightmare began late last week when his daughter, who was raised in Queens by his ex-wife and only saw him sporadically, asked to come visit over the weekend.
He sent her a bus ticket.
When Ashley arrived at the bus station, she blurted, "Dad, did you hear about the lady that got shot in New York?"
She said she had heard about the disturbing killing of the 28-year-old actress on the news.
"She told me she heard that the woman had said, 'What are you going to do, shoot me?' and then the guy shot her," Evans said. "It just went in one ear and out the other for me. I mean, what kind of nonsense is this? Who would do that?"
But Ashley was so interested in the case she later showed him a news story about it on the Internet, he said. He hadn't a clue she was actually involved until he got a call from her mother Monday night, saying cops wanted to talk to Ashley about the murder.
At the time, he had just come down with a terrible stomach virus, he said, and he couldn't really think straight.
Then the cops called and he knew it was serious. He told them to come down - and told Ashley to pack her things.
"What kind of people are you hanging out with?" he demanded of his daughter. "Why can't you find decent people?"
She muttered some "jibber-jabber" about her boyfriend, he said. "She seemed a little remorseful."
Evans, 46, a genial electronic systems technician, couldn't understand it. Law enforcement, playing by the rules, runs deep in the family.
Evans was a cop in the 113th Precinct in Queens from 1992 to 1995 and later was a special police officer at the Energy Department in Washington. His brother and sister are correction officers at Rikers Island.
But Ashley always ran a little wild after the bitter divorce, he said. She came to live with him and his new wife in Maryland in the summer of 2001.
However, he sent her home to New York because she wouldn't obey house rules like not inviting people over when he was at work.
"Her problem is her mother didn't guide her right," Evans said.
But when cops arrived at his home late Tuesday, Evans had no idea his daughter soon would be hit with second-degree-murder, weapons and robbery raps.
"I asked the police, 'Is my daughter under arrest?' They said no, that they just wanted to question her," he said, his anger rising.
"They told me they had their shooter! I would never have let her go without a lawyer otherwise."
His parting advice to his daughter was: "You better start talking. Whatever they want to know, you best to tell them."
In the wee hours yesterday, after the long drive back to New York, Ashley Evans followed her father's advice - and detectives promptly arrested her.
Cops say she stood by as 19-year-old Rudy Fleming allegedly shot duFresne. Ashley plucked credit cards out of a purse stolen in the fatal holdup, and hid Fleming's gun inside a friend's apartment, cops charge.
Evans had no idea she had been charged with murder until a News reporter knocked on his door yesterday in a quiet suburban cul de sac surrounded by snow-dappled horse farms.
Sitting in his airy, plant-filled house in Cheltenham, surrounded by pictures of his kids with his second wife, Evans' emotions bounced wildly.
There was his anger at the detectives, sorrow that his eldest daughter got stuck without a lawyer - and fury at her for being anywhere near such a hideous crime.
"I'm in Maryland trying to live a quiet life," he said. "I'm just the father trying to figure out what happened."
Our adopted daughter has done time. I feel for this man. BTW, she's getting married in August to a wonderful guy.
Do you trust her?
I'm sorry for the father in this story. But he got a lot better deal than Ms. duFresne's parents did -- I hope he'll reflect on that.
If the shooting was only alleged, how is it that duFresne died?
Another divorced family forces society to pay the price of their selfishness.
Ahhh.
I feel sorry for the divorced father.
Throw the book at the disgusting murderess.
Though I applaud his current actions, it doesn't seem he guided her well at all, either. He decided he couldn't control her and just shipped her to someone else.
Sounds like a good man. And sometimes very bad things happen to good people.
Sometimes, you have to let your kids stew in their own soup.
I have a successful business, yet I refuse to give any aid to my youngest daughter. At least as long as she is with the the piece of crap she is with. You marry a 30 hour a week McDonalds puke, you can expect to live a certain way.
Damm. Just damm.
To me, I can't feel sorry for her at all. Maybe there is something wrong with me,Politics aside, no one deserves to be shot down like a dog in the street.
I can disagree with her positions, and still feel empathy for the injustice she suffered.
"Another divorced family forces society to pay the price of their selfishness."
I feel you! :)
i feel bad for the father here
he seems decent enough
as for his daughter she should rot for this hideous crime
Oh, this poor man. He did the right thing for which I commend him, but this has ruined his life.
That's easy for you to say. I'm sure Mr. Evans regrets the day he ever walked down the aisle with his ex-Wife.
The uncertainty applies to who did the shooting, not about the victim being shot.
She didn't deserve to die, no matter what her politics were.
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